Maria Callas: An Intimate Biography
by Anne Edwards
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Description
From the New York Times bestselling biographer Anne Edwards comes the irresistible true story of the lives and loves of the great opera diva, Maria Callas. Maria Callas continues to mesmerize us decades after her death, not only because she was indisputably the greatest opera diva of the 20th century, but also because both her life and death were shrouded in a Machiavellian web of scandal, mystery and deception. Now Anne Edwards, well known for her revealing and insightful biographies of show more some of the world's most noted women, tells the intimate story of Maria Callas-her loves, her life, and her music, revealing the true woman behind the headlines, gossip and speculation. The second daughter of Greek immigrant parents, Maria found herself in the grasp of an overwhelmingly ambitious mother who took her away from her native New York and the father she loved, to a Greece on the eve of the Second World War. From there, we learn of the hardships, loves and triumphs Maria experienced in her professional and personal life. We are introduced to the men who marked Callas forever-Luchino Visconti, the brilliant homosexual director who she loved hopelessly, Giovanni Battista Meneghini, the husband thirty years her senior who used her for his own ambitions, as had her mother, and Aristotle Onassis, who put an end to their historic love affair by discarding her for the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy. Throughout her life, Callas waged a constant battle with her weight, a battle she eventually won, transforming herself from an ugly duckling into the slim and glamorous diva who transformed opera forever, whose recordings are legend, and whose life is the stuff of which tabloids are made. Anne Edwards goes deeper than previous biographies of Maria Callas have dared. She draws upon intensive research to refute the story of Callas's "mystery child" by Onassis, and she reveals the true circumstances of the years preceding Callas's death, including the deception perpetrated by her close and trusted friend. As in her portraits of other brilliant, star-crossed women, Edwards brings Maria Callas-the intimate Callas-alive. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
fully discusses her vocal development and decline, her amorous adventures and her theatricality onstage and off.
Callas, Maria, 1923-1977/Sopranos (Singers) > Biography
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Author Information
37+ Works 2,432 Members
Anne Edwards is the New York Times best-selling author of Vivien Leigh: A Biography and Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor as well as several other biographies, novels, and children's books. She lives in Beverly Hills, California.
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- María Callas:Una biografía íntima
- Original title
- Maria Callas. An intimate biography.
- People/Characters
- Maria Callas; Aristotle Onassis; Elsa Maxwell
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Music, Biography & Memoir, Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 782.1092 — Arts & recreation Music Vocal Music, Singing Operas and related dramatic vocal forms; concert versions modified standard subdivisions History, geographic treatment, biography Biography
- LCC
- ML420 .C18 .E39 — Music Literature on music Literature on music History and criticism Biography
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 86
- Popularity
- 370,482
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.60)
- Languages
- English, French, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 8
- ASINs
- 1
